Preliminary Programme

The Spanish flu pandemic is considered as one of the greatest catastrophes in human history. The second, deadly wave of the flu pandemic also reached the population of the Slovenian provinces in Austria-Hungary between September and December 1918.
The paper will analyse the situation in Ljubljana, the capital of the Carniola province at that time. Due to the unavailability of medical statistics on flu contraction and fatality for individual provinces, death registers remain the only direct source. The sex, age and social class structure of the deceased will be demonstrated on the basis of the death register data for five Ljubljana parishes and the Ljubljana provincial hospital. Provincial public healthcare measures and observations by individual physicians will also be presented. School chronicles, various articles from the daily and specialized newspapers, memoires and diaries will be relied upon to demonstrate several levels of the influenza epidemic perception by the provincial and urban population. (Show less)

On the basis of historical sources as parish registers, hospital registers and Istrian newspapers in 1918 and 1919 (Hrvatski list, Il Gazzettino di Pola, Polaer Tagblatt) in this paper it is explored the appearance and the course of the Spanish flu Pandemic in two centers of Austrian Littoral, namely Pula as the main Austro-Hungarian port, and Pazin, smaller urban area in the centre of Istria.
This case studies demonstrate the incidence of the pandemic's morbidity and mortality among civilians, the peak of the pandemic, the probable pandemic's route of entry in Istria. Also, it displays if it has shown the same gender and age diversity in it's mortality and morbidity in relation to European and world standards.
Methodology which is used for getting the results primarily is historical and social analysis, assisted by statistical analysis. The theme is studied within the context of complex social and political conditions, marked with the ending of the World War I operations, breakdown of Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy, formation of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, and Italian occupation of Istria. (Show less)

Spanish influenza heavily attacked the Austrian Littoral, one of the 18 crown lands in the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy at the end of the World war I. Besides dominant physical manifestations of the disease, it is specualted that mental disturbances, primarily depression, could have accompanied the influenza, either simoultaneously, or consequently.
The paper focuses on the situation in the largest towns of the Margraviate of Istria, one of the districts in the Austrian Littoral. The objective is to explore whether same patients hospitalised and diagnosed with Spanish flu were also hospitalised and diagnosed with some mental disturbance. Hospital registers are analysed for the period 1918 - 1920. The results are interpreted from the contemporaty perspective that takes into consideration the analysis of risk and protective factors and biopsychosocial approach to health and illness. In this case the contemporary frame in explaining of this historic phenomenon is confronted with the historical context, given the fact that there are limitiations in reliable data and standardised diagnostic criteria. (Show less)

Conducting a collaborative project that involves a statistical study of historical datasets, one is faced with several methodological and technical choices. This paper will discuss some of the points of the problematic as well as their possible solutions. It will then proceed to describe the choices made by a team of Croatian and Slovenian historians in an undergoing study of the outbreak of Spanish influenza.
Case studies on datasets from mortuary books from Ljubljana, Pula, Koper and Pazin are being conducted. The issues that will be presented include the choice of the platform for transcription and storage of the data, mapping of the medical expressions for the death causes recorded in the sources and collating the categories found in the three respective sources. (Show less)